“The Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives of American liberty from thirteen States of the Confederacy, twelve of which were slaveholding communities. We need not discuss the way or the reason of their becoming slave-holding communities. It is sufficient for our purpose that all of them greatly deplored the evil and that they placed a provision in the Constitution which they supposed would gradually remove the disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition of the slave trade. So general was the conviction, the public determination, to abolish the African slave trade, that the provision which I have referred to as being placed in the Constitution declared that it should not be abolished prior to the year 1808. A constitutional provision was necessary to prevent the people, through Congress, from putting a stop to the traffic immediately at the close of the war.

Now if slavery had been a good thing, would the Fathers of the Republic have taken a step calculated to diminish its beneficent influences among themselves, and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows.

They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution.

Think nothing of me — take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever — but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man’s success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity — the Declaration of American Independence.”

In late 2009, I lost a pretty incredible job. It wasn’t the paid at the top rate in its industry, by any means, but it was the best wage I’d ever earned and it was a job that I was a natural fit for, (in fact, I had applied and interviewed for a different position, but some test results had the HR and management at the company ask me to me re-interview, for this other job!). The people were, on the whole, great, the work enjoyable and it was a short 10-minute commute. Then the economy started crashing and that was that. Lay-offs started and being fairly new to the company and not the most productive, (I can do high quality work, but it is apparently low in quantity), the axe fell upon my corporate neck. In those four-and-a-half years I’ve worked a total of seven months.

My wife & I sit, and plan and talk about all the stuff we want to do around here – the little businesses we want to start; the landscaping of our double lot into a self sufficient, crop growing wonderland – but it never happens. Most likely wont happen here, now, either.

The depression is terrible. It kills everything.

It hasn’t helped that, quite literally the only risk I’ve ever taken is coming to the USA to see if the internet romance we started could work in real life. My natural propensity is to have an idea, only to almost immediately dismiss it as a failure. Depression just makes this happen much quicker. So quick that anymore even mid-idea the vision of its total failure fills my mind and the thought dissipates.

I know I’m better than this. I am certain my wife and kids deserve more than this. But I just feel so lost in this whirlwind of life.

Sometimes I see the downturn in my fortunes and demeanor and that of this country and wonder… am I the King Arthur to the USA’s ancient Britain?! The apparent death of my homeownership on Good Friday has also made me wonder if this means that in three days I will rise from “the dead”. Maybe I’m just being delusional. Maybe its my mind just looking for patterns, as you do when looking at the whorls in a piece of polished wood and see the eyes and ghosts. Maybe all I need is to find that Holy Grail or to have someone roll away that stone. (Just noticed another link there, between the Holy Grail and Easter).

Oddly, the fog of depression and resignation has lifted a touch, as I write these words. Strange…

There was a time when life seemed kind
Its circumstances soft
And the future inviting
There was a time when life was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed an American dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that youth would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid
So American dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

As I grew up, it turned the tide
And filled my days with endless stresses
It took my childhood in his stride
But it was gone when hard times came
And still I dream it’ll come to me
That I will live the good years again
But these are American dreams that might not be
And there are storms we might not weather

I had an American dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The American dream I dreamed

Firstly, I managed to get our disconnection notice for our natural gas delayed two weeks. That was the good part, the bad part of this is that in a letter we received Monday, we have to pay the whole outstanding amount, ($400+), not the $180+ they were asking for to prevent disconnection.

Oh, but then the icing on the I-can’t-see-a-way-out-of-this-shit life situation I have lead myself into, dragging my wife and kids with me. Two letters from the lawyers office dealing with our foreclosure. Been waiting for this for a while, wondering when the process would restart. Oh… its restarted, alright. Restart, as in, picked up from where we left off, before the forebearance agreement. We have a date, next month, for the Sheriff’s sale of our house. I was fully expecting a restart of the process, not a continuation.

Fuck.

I don’t suppose the government will bail me out, like a Wall Street bank, will they? It’ll cost a fraction of the amount, (barely $25k should do…).

This house is, like my life, full of clutter and needing a damn good renovation. Just don’t know where to start, in either case.

I look at you sometimes, lately, and I wonder who you are. Remember when God, family, flag and country mattered to you? Remember when you were a melting pot, welcoming legal immigrants into your expansive embrace? Remember when that meant that people who chose, of their own free will, to come here had to assimilate into their chosen adopted country? When such immigrants were happy, even proud, to adopt the language and customs of their new, chosen home (or at least to encourage their children to do so)? Remember when your name inspired pride and unity among your own people and, equally importantly, when that same name inspired (albeit sometimes grudging) respect (and, sometimes, deterrent fear) among the peoples of hostile lands? Remember when your presidents weren’t longing for a “post-American” world?

I didn’t manage to say very much on Channel 5’s The Big Benefits Row, beyond an opening remark about people not being able to just rock up to a food bank with a carrier bag and help themselves. I started to talk about the Trussell Trust when Edwina Currie, also on my panel, cut over me to talk about my grandfather’s circumstances.

I wanted to say that poverty is almost indescribable to Edwina and co with their blinkered, self-righteous attitudes. That turning off the fridge because it’s empty anyway, that sitting across the table from your young son enviously staring down his breakfast, having freezing cold showers and putting your child to bed in god knows how many layers of clothes in the evening – it’s distressing. Depressing. Destabilising.

Imagine living for 11 weeks with no housing benefit, because of “delays”. Imagine those 77 days of being chased for rent…